Beabadoobee‘s new album has me thinking about the passage of time. It was two years ago that I got an advance listen to This Is How Tomorrow Moves, my first time as a music journalist getting to hear the new work from an artist I love before the rest of the world did (you can read that review here), and coming back to her now, for her fourth studio album, Pylon, out today via Dirty Hit and Interscope Records, it’s clear how much can change in two years, and how much stays exactly the same. In this new album, Bea trades its Rick Rubin-polished ’90s indie warmth for something rawer and more distorted. Even her look has shifted to match, a new shag mullet replacing her softer era style.
The anticipation built over months of singles: “Sun Has Set,” “Switchblade,” and “Memories,” each one hinting at a harder, more direct sound than anything in her catalog. The guest list backs that up. Hayley Williams lends her voice to the anthemic “Nothing To Prove,” Turnstile’s Brendan Yates gets his own verse on the moody “Powerlines,” and Pinegrove’s Evan Stephens Hall, Deftones’ Chino Moreno, and Title Fight’s Shane Moran all show up across the record. “Write Me A Letter” carries a quieter credit that will mean just as much to longtime fans: production from Matty Healy and George Daniel of The 1975.
The album takes its name from the electricity pylons that line highways worldwide, a symbol Bea has said represents the connection to home she felt while touring in isolation. It’s also a fitting metaphor for the record’s own sound: waves of distortion that crash and shatter, not unlike the crackle you hear standing under power lines. It’s an apt title, too, for songs that reckon with the repetitive anxieties of your mid-twenties: the nagging sense that you might always feel this way.
That tension plays out track by track. The title cut opens the record with an audio collage before settling into an acoustic riff, and nothing stays mellow for long after that; gnashing drums and hard guitar keep working their way in. “Sun Has Set” rocks from its opening seconds and hands you a chorus built for yelling along. “Estranged” turns delicate guitar picking into one of the record’s cutest lines, “something keeps you coming back to me,” while “Switchblade” slows into grungier territory, with what sounds like Williams on background vocals underneath a gnarled, distorted solo.
“Write Me A Letter,” the album’s last single, lands with its music video today alongside the record: more finger-picking before the beat comes in, a verse melody that’s quintessentially Bea, and a drum breakdown near the end that’s one of the record’s best moments. “Need you to stay, you make me better” is classic her. “It’s Alright” is the clearest nod to ’90s radio rock here, building a yearning verse into a soft, pop-leaning chorus.
“In Motion” opens on piano and strumming guitar before its chorus turns ballad-y and shoegaze-y (“gotta get away from here,”) then flips into something more hardcore and yell-y. “Memories” leans folky at first, but once the bass and drums kick in, it becomes impossibly catchy. Her songs, at their core, are always romantic.
Through all of it, Beabadoobee never loses the sweet, breathy voice that made her name. She just keeps daring it to survive louder and louder surroundings. “Nothing To Prove” is the clear standout, a bouncy, girl-power duet with Williams, and any song that breaks into “la la la”s is an instant anthem in my book. “Radio” is pure grunge swagger, proof she’s fully in command of this heavier register now. The back half slows things down: “Spark” and “Despite That” both lean acoustic and autumnal before “Satellite” closes the record on a slow, aching note that erupts into a screamo outburst in its final seconds.
Pylon isn’t as immediately catchy as This Is How Tomorrow Moves, but it’s a bolder record for it. Beabadoobee digs further into the rock instincts that have always run underneath her sound and pulls in a genuinely impressive cast of collaborators to help her get there.
Catch these songs live starting October 1, when she kicks off her first-ever arena run, “The Powerlines Tour,” with stops at Madison Square Garden, The Kia Forum, and The O2 among many others.
Pylon is out now.
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